Variations is an interactive conceptual art installation by Kevin McVey.
Its purpose is to explore the subtle beauty of simple, unique polygons given a user's creative input. Try it out here.
Though the piece can be run in one's browser, its proper presentation is in the form of a physical installation. There are thus two versions of this code, one for the Web and one to be run on a Raspberry Pi. Please see the project's homepage for more. (also pictures!)
Variations is run as a web application in a Chromium kiosk window. This version, however, has been modified to operate using keyboard input in place of a GUI.
For installation purposes, this keyboard can also be replaced with physical pushbuttons tied to the Raspberry Pi's GPIO. This code (located in /RasPi/Keyboard) requires WiringPi and is thus built using the -lwiringPi gcc flag. A pinout to keyboard to action diagram is below:
WiringPi : Keyboard : Action
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0 : Q : Increase # of polygon sides
1 : A : Decrease # of polygon sides
2 : W : Increase # of drawn edges
3 : S : Decrease # of drawn edges
4 : E : Draw faint outline of polygon
5 : R : Increase range of drawn polygons
6 : F : Decrease range of drawn polygons
11 : T : Shift range right
8 : G : Shift range left
9 : C : Reset to default
10 : P : Print (or debug)
Note that the pins above are WiringPi pins, and do not match the pin numbers used on the Raspberry Pi itself.
A custom autostart script is also provided here in the event that your installation is intended to boot straight into this software. Simply modify the file locations on lines 4 & 5, and then place the file in your Pi's /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart directory.
Click on the control toggle on the left-hand side of the page to bring up the image parameters. From here, use the tool-tips and error messaging to guide your way through the piece. Share your unique artwork with friends by simply copy/pasting your automatically updating URL. Easy, right? :)